Netizens fume after Donald Trump asks if sunlight could be used to treat Covid-19

Netizens fume after Donald Trump asks if sunlight could be used to treat Covid-19

During the White House briefing, Trump wondered aloud if disinfectants could be used as a treatment, asking whether there is "a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning."

People trolled Trump online and many doctors and health experts warned people not to follow his advice.

Even as doctors and scientists around the world work to find a vaccine or cure for Covid-19, US President Donald Trump Thursday suggested some pretty unusual solutions. Trump said absorbing sunlight and injecting disinfectants might help fight the virus that has killed over 1.9 lakh people worldwide.

During his daily coronavirus briefing at the White House, Trump touted new research from his Department of Homeland Security that suggested sunlight, heat and humidity could kill the virus. This despite top health officials not confirming the findings or performing any relevant studies on these subjects.

“There’s been a rumour that — you know, a very nice rumour — that you go outside in the sun or you have heat and it does have an effect on other viruses,” Trump said. Then he turned to his coronavirus task force coordinator Dr Deborah Birx and asked her “to speak to the medical doctors to see if there’s any way that you can apply light and heat to cure, you know, if you could.”

After hearing presentation President Trump suggests irradiating people’s bodies with UV light or injecting them with bleach or alcohol to deal with COVID19. pic.twitter.com/cohkLyyl9G

“So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just a very powerful light,” Trump said before the members of the press. “And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or some other way and I think you said you’re going to test that too.”

Dr Birx spoke instead of how getting a fever was a good sign that the body was reacting to the virus.

Here is Dr. Birx’s reaction when President Trump asks his science advisor to study using UV light on the human body and injecting disinfectant to fight the coronavirus. pic.twitter.com/MVno5X7JMA

After Bill Bryan, the acting undersecretary of science and technology for the Department of Homeland Security, talked about experiments in which, he said, disinfectants like bleach and isopropyl alcohol quickly killed the virus, Trump wondered aloud if disinfectants could be used as a treatment, asking whether there is “a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning.”

Many experts weighed in his opinion and warned people that there are several countries in the tropics with high temperature that are also seeing a rapid spread of the virus and there’s no evidence heat will slow its spread.

His claims created a huge buzz on social media and many people asked the US president to keep his medical advice to himself.

Information presented at WH Press briefing should not be considered evidence of virus slowing or seasonality. Just look at what’s happening now in Ecuador

Trump is absolutely wrong and irresponsible to suggest that sunlight or heat can treat people with the coronavirus. Many older individuals, who are vulnerable to heat stroke and dehydration, may die listening to his advice. Sunlight and heat can decontaminate surfaces not people.

First Trump pushed hydroxychloroquine as a possible miracle cure. Now he wants people to inject a magic disinfectant and stand in the sun. Maybe he should let the scientists and the health professionals lead the way instead of pushing potentially deadly medical advice. https://t.co/qgL8qZYu8f

This one little segment should be enough to have him removed from office. If our nation hadn’t been hijacked by hate, stupidity and anti-science. It’s like an SNL skit, but it’s really happening, he’s saying it. And she sits there nodding.

It’s not the first time Trump has made public claims about the sun’s healing powers. During a campaign rally in New Hampshire in February, he had said, “You know in theory when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. Hope that’s true.”